1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a carrier assembly with a removable insert therein which will reliably pass through a high speed printer or copier for variable printing and, more particularly, to a carrier assembly which substantially simulates the qualities of a paper and remain substantially flat.
2. Description of the Related Art
Virtually everyone in today""s society has at least one identification (ID) card in some form or another. These ID cards are mailed out by businesses to their customers with essential data imprinted on them so that each customer may be identified when calling to conduct business. Increasingly, ID cards are mailed out attached to an accompanying form sheet with the customer""s address and the instructions on how to use the ID card, thereby eliminating the possibility of mailing the wrong ID card to customers. Other products, such as automobile license plate labels, are also sent to the user, mounted on carrier sheets. Printing is generally done by printers and copiers or the like, which are connected to a computer to print each form with information pertaining to a customer. Also, with the advancement of high speed printers and copiers, large quantities of forms may be printed in a short time. For example, today""s high speed printers may make 80 to 180 copies per minute, and such printers are commonly used in the insurance industry to make ID cards for customers.
There are several patents which disclose ID cards attached to a form for printing by a printer or the like. However, these references do not disclose a form with an insert such as an ID card attached thereto which can reliably pass through a high speed printer. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,830 issued to Edwards, discloses a sheet with an indentation pressed into the front surface of the sheet, and a card is adhesively applied within the indentation. One of the problems here is that the sheets do not have constant thickness due to the indentation, and as the sheets pass through a high speed printer, the printers periodically jam. In this regard, high speed printers are designed to handle papers with uniform mechanical properties, and any significant departure from uniformity will cause occasional malfunctions, with resultant down-time of the printing process.
In an effort to solve the problem of jamming, there are several patents which disclose a form with constant thickness, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,183 issued to McKillip, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,236 issued to Greig. Both references disclose a form comprising a face sheet which is fixed to a base or backing sheet by an intermediate layer of adhesive fully coated between the two sheets. The face sheet has a cutout to receive a card within the cutout, and which is removed after printing. However, one problem with the forms made according to the above construction is that they tend to curl over time. Curling is predominately caused by the form sheets absorbing moisture from the atmosphere. For example, if the face sheet absorbs more moisture than the base sheet, then the face sheet will have greater tendency to curl, and the base sheet will follow since they are both fixed to one another, and a similar result occurs if the base sheet absorbs more moisture.
With today""s high speed printers and copiers, however, curling of the form sheets can present a number of problems because these machines are designed for printing on flat papers. For example, most printers and copiers have either a vacuum or friction mechanism to feed the papers from the feeding tray. With a vacuum feeding mechanism, paper sheets are basically sucked up against a belt then fed into the printing unit. However, any unevenness or curl on the sheet creates a leak so that an incomplete vacuum is created against the belt, and may cause the belt to improperly feed the paper into the printing unit or, worse yet, jamming it. With a friction feed mechanism, rollers are used to grab the paper and feed it into the printing unit. However, if there is unevenness or curl on the paper, then the rollers are unable to make continuous contact with the paper for proper feeding, thus causing the paper to again feed at an angle or occasionally jamming the printing unit, forcing shut-down of the printing process.
Therefore, there is still a need for a carrier of inserts such as ID cards which can reliably pass through a high speed printer or copier. These and other objects, features and advantages will become apparent from consideration of the following detailed description and from the accompanying drawings.
A general object of the present invention is to provide a carrier which can carry an insert, such as an ID card, reliably through a high speed printer or copier, to make large quantities of personalized inserts which may be later removed from the accompanying carrier.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, these and other objectives are accomplished by providing a carrier that substantially simulates the qualities of a document paper, such as: constant thickness, flexibility, and lay-flat properties. An exemplary assembly, in accordance with the present invention, having the above qualities includes: a base sheet; a face sheet having a predetermined thickness, the face sheet having a window opening; an insert of a different material from the face sheet, the insert having a thickness substantially equal to the predetermined thickness of the face sheet, and substantially filling the window opening of the face sheet; a first layer of adhesive having a plurality of adhesive areas and a plurality of non-adhesive areas, the first layer of adhesive discontinuously securing the face sheet to the base sheet, wherein the face sheet and the base sheet are mechanically de-coupled to a substantial extent by the plurality of non-adhesive areas to enhance lay-flat properties; a second different adhesive releasably securing the insert to the base sheet; and the multilayer sheet assembly having substantially coplanar surfaces and being sufficiently flexible to reliably pass through a high speed printer or copier.
Constant thickness is achieved in the above exemplary carrier by providing the insert (such as an ID card) with substantially the same thickness as the face stock sheet, and providing the first and second adhesive layers which are also substantially the same in thickness. Therefore, the assembly of the face and base sheets has substantially coplanar surfaces. Furthermore, the exemplary carrier is flexible because the first layer of adhesive bonds the face sheet to the base sheet discontinuously, i.e., some areas are not bonded, which allows the two sheets to breathe and work independently in this area to improve the flexibility of the exemplary carrier. xe2x80x9cBreathingxe2x80x9d between the two sheets also allows any moisture absorbed by one sheet to be absorbed by the other sheet, thereby minimizing the curling of one sheet over another. Thus, the exemplary carrier stays substantially flat. At the same time, in the areas where the two sheets are bonded, the two sheets work together and provide structure to further resist curling.
As one advantage to the use of two different materials, the insert may be made of more expensive material than the remainder of the face stock sheet, thus reducing costs.
Although the present invention has been described in terms of the preferred embodiment above, numerous modifications and/or additions to the above-described preferred embodiments would be readily apparent to one skilled in the art, which are to be interpreted in accordance with the principles of patent law, including the Doctrine of Equivalents.